Hellraiser Boxing News | What Makes A Good Pay Per View Event?With Pay Per View events seemingly increasing in regularity, Chris Waddams looks at what makes on worthy, in his opinion, of the extra money they cost you.

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There’s been a lot of moaning lately about certain fights having Pay Per View/Box Office coverage. Steve Bunce said on his Twitter account the other day he counts a dozen PPV bouts before Christmas, although refreshingly this week's mega fight between Gennady Golovkin and Saul Alvarez comes as part of the BoxNation subscription. I thought I’d put my thoughts to print as to what I deem makes a fight PPVworthy. I’ll also be given examples of this. Some you may not agree with me because of hindsight but when you look at the facts from before the fight they made PPV/Box Office sense.

So what makes a fight, or fight card PPVworthy?

In my opinion a PPV fight needs to interest the casual fan, draw them into the “Big Fight”. It generally needs to be two household names going head to head. It needs to be a fight that would get a casual fight fans who didn’t know the difference between a Cruiserweight and a Lightweight acting as if they were Dan Rafael. (I have friends that believed that Cruiserweight was a small weight because when they were younger and into Wrestling, the Cruiserweights were the small wrestlers…)

A perfect example of this was Mayweather vs Pacquiao. Were both boxers household names? I’d say so, in the U.K at least, even if it was just because they’d both beaten Ricky Hatton a few years before. Everyone and their dogs had an opinion on who would win the fight. Another example of this was David Haye vs Audley Harrison. Everyone knew who Harrison was; he’d won the gold medal at the Sydney Olympics. And David Haye was known because he was the first British Heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis. Both these fights got the casual Dan Rafaels buzzing.

Both fights were also hugely disappointing for the casuals but I think that “hard-core” fans knew how both fights were going to pan out.

Another time that a fight can be considered PPVworthy would be a name that transcends their sport, one that is making some serious noise and history. An example is Conor McGregor. Everyone wants to know what he’s doing, especially after the Mayweather fight. Will he stay in boxing? Will he go back to the UFC and dominate there still?

The third example of what makes a fight card PPVworthy is if it’s an action packed card. A couple of world title/ level fights involving exciting fighters, then some very hot talent as the undercard (maybe a few domestic titles on the line if it’s a British fight card).

Another thing it has to have is some good marketing. The Mayweather – Pacquiao fight was billed as the “Fight of the Century”. Both had beaten the who’s who in their weight class and the surrounding weight classes. It was the fight that everyone wanted to see. Again with the David Haye – Audley Harrison fight. We had our Heavyweight Champion going against our (at the time) last Heavyweight Olympic gold medallist. And there was the apparent bad blood between the two. Both these fights sold.

A PPV fight that got closest to ticking all these boxes (for me) and lived up to the expectation was Froch vs Groves 2. AJ vs Klitschko could have been the perfect PPV if it had a strong undercard, but Matchroom didn't need a strong undercard because the main event sold the whole show, so that's out. If someone wanted to find out what was the perfect British PPV then they should look at that Froch vs Groves 2:

•Two household names in the main event? Yup, if they weren’t before their first fight they definitely were after it

•Did the fight transcend the sport? Yup! After the controversy of their first fight it was quite a big deal everywhere.

•One or more World title fights? Yup again. There was the obvious one in Froch – Groves but it also had Jamie McDonnell going for the WBA Bantamweight title

•Quality Undercard? Yup again! We had Kevin Mitchell and James DeGale both in final eliminators for world titles (I know Mitchell’s was downgraded due to him gaining too much weight between the weigh in and the fight but it was billed as an eliminator) AND we had the hottest prospect in British Boxing in Anthony Joshua continuing his impressive career.

That card was a PPV main event and card.

Ultimately people shouldn’t moan about having to shell out the money to pay for the PPV. And people definitely shouldn’t be saying “WHO is he fighting?”